This invention relates to the field of computer systems. More particularly, a system and methods are provided for determining bounds of a geographical area based on the location of a city or cities within the area.
Mapping software is very popular with many computer users, who may rely upon it for obtaining directions, becoming familiar with a new area, finding points of interest, locating a business establishment, etc. Existing methods of electronically displaying maps are typically capable of locating and displaying a specific address or landmark (e.g., an airport) within a particular geographical area (e.g., a city, a state, a country). However, they are generally not capable of identifying or determining boundaries of the geographical area, and may therefore be unable to provide supplemental information (e.g., advertisements, descriptions of sites of interest) pertaining just to that area.
For example, advertisers are often interested in having advertisements for their establishments or products displayed for users who open an electronic map to view an area in which their establishment is located or their product is available. Thus, a hotel or restaurant may wish to have an advertisement served with (e.g., overlaid upon) a map centered within some distance of their location.
However, the area covered by the user's view port may overlap multiple cities, metropolitan regions or other areas that the advertiser is not interested in or that are not covered by the advertiser's agreement with the map provider or service. Or, the advertiser may want its advertisement served with maps covering a general area (e.g., a city, a metropolitan region). In either scenario, it is necessary to determine whether a map display provided to a user overlaps an advertiser's area(s) of interest and, possibly, whether it overlaps more or less than a threshold amount.
Unfortunately, mapping software cannot readily determine where one geographical area (e.g., city, metropolitan region) ends and another begins. Even if the data used to display an area shows purported boundaries (e.g., if the electronic map is simply a copy of a printed map), those boundaries are not coded in a manner decipherable by the software (e.g., as latitude/longitude coordinates).
If the mapping algorithm or software is not capable of identifying boundaries of geographical areas, then it cannot properly limit the display of a particular advertisement to appropriate map views, and may not be able to determine which advertisements to display for a particular view.
Similarly, if a mapping algorithm or tool cannot identify the boundaries or extent of a geographical area, then the algorithm or tool will also be incapable of determining which areas overlap a map view. This will also negatively affect the ability to select and/or display advertisements appropriate to the view.
Yet further, even if a mapping tool was capable of identifying boundaries of geographical areas, and could determine whether a particular area overlapped a user's view of a map, it may not be desirable to automatically display all advertisements associated with all overlapping areas. For example, if an advertiser's target area of interest overlaps only a very small portion of the user's view, then it may be preferable for an advertisement associated with that area to be omitted, or lowered in priority with regard to advertisements associated with areas comprising much larger portions of the view.